Common Blogging Distractions and How to Avoid Them

Online business or blogging is a demanding activity and so it is essential that you do not lose your focus.

As a serious blogger or someone who’s all fired up to take the plunge into this grueling (and yet exciting) journey, you may want to keep things in control.

I’m sure you like to stay focused and organised to manage your blogging activities efficiently.

Blogging is a continual process and whatever refinement or efficiency that happens with your activity, it is going to come through experience.

And by being disciplined.

But it is also a fact that no matter how hard you try, distractions will happen.

Life will happen.

Distraction is what happens around you that takes your attention away from your immediate task and your goals.

It’s not easy to remain focused when your attention is constantly drawn to other things.

Distraction is frustrating because a task that would normally take an hour to accomplish ends up taking the whole day.

The inspiration to sit down on your computer to write your blog post constantly plays hide-and-seek.

It saps your energy.

The quality of your work also gets affected.

Let’s see some common blogging distractions that affect us.

#1: Unplanned Lifestyle

Blogging is not simply about writing and publishing content.

How easy would it have been if it were so?

Blogging is the sum total of various activities and all interconnected to produce definite results.

If you’re a newbie, it can easily overwhelm you if you do not plan things properly.

Otherwise, your blogging activity can take a backseat.

Life situations for all bloggers are different.

Your normal daily life can sometimes hamper your journey.

Your work (if you are with a 9-5 office job), your family, and personal life can interfere with your blogging activity.

If you’re serious about blogging and want to achieve good results, then you will need to have a definite plan in place.

Like nurturing your writing habit. Be sure to make writing a part of your daily activity.

Set blogging goals.

Do not let your day-to-day activities come in your way and cause distraction from your blogging goals.

Do you have a checklist for your daily to-do things?

Your blogging activities, and specially, writing should be one of them.

Keep aside at least for a few minutes (if not hours) for your blogging routine.

If you don’t do so, then it is very likely that you will have distractions that will hamper your blogging progress.

#2: Making Things Complicated – Doing Everything at Once

In any domain, in any activity, it is easier to make things complicated than making them simple.

It’s always very difficult to make things simple. Isn’t that so?

Try explaining a new concept to people, and you will realise that it’s not easy to come up with a straightforward, uncomplicated exposition.

Whereas it is so very easy to befuddle an audience with a long-winded interpretation replete with complex and high-sounding terms.

People tend to over-complicate things and end up getting stressed out.

This tendency is not really a bad thing as it shows your critical or questioning nature, but the problem comes when you become overly anxious.

It becomes a serious issue when it affects your focus.

And when it causes a distraction.

Let it be understood that the mental schemas of newbies are different from those of the experts in any activity.

To illustrate, let’s say a newbie knows that there are 25 variables/strategies that can affect the outcome of an activity.

The path is laid out before him.

But because he has no experience, he does not have any idea about the extent of the impact each variable has and how they interact with other variables.

He does not know how to prioritise those variables. To him, all the strategies are equally important.

So, what he does is try out the 25 strategies all at once being afraid that leaving anything out would not bring in the desired results.

He thinks his efforts would be sub-optimal for success because he has read the experts’ definitive check-list for blogging success that says all the 25 strategies need to be included.

Hence, he’ll make things complicated for himself.

Now, let’s take the case of an expert.

An expert, because of his experience knows, let’s say the 7 variables out of the 25 that matter the most and thus work out a strategy for an optimal result.

This happens in a much-uncomplicated manner.

He’ll keep everything simple.

I made mistakes in the beginning because I didn’t understand that as a beginner, it’s not necessary to take up all the tasks to achieve results.

Apart from writing blog posts, I tried to dabble in social media marketing – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

I attempted AdWords.

YouTube, I tried and made some cringe-worthy videos.

I heeded some people’s opinions that I should be having email marketing in place from day 1 itself.

I wasted much of my precious time in learning how to set up campaigns, the opt-ins, and in designing the pop-ups.

All these distracted me.

Needless to say, my content creation got affected badly.

But I learned my lesson.

It is important to understand that as a beginner, it is impossible to incorporate all strategies at one time.

Instead of mastering these strategies one-by-one, you end up dabbling in too many things and having half-baked knowledge.

You end up having your fingers in too many pies.

Let’s be clear about our approach, shall we?

You should go step-by-step and try to assimilate each strategy clearly.

Blogging is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

Do not let the many choices overwhelm and distract you.

Pick a few main activities and work upon mastering them.

What good is that activity where you start all kinds of strategies in one go and leave them all half-done?

Don’t jump the gun but concentrate only on a few strategies in the beginning and scale them up as you gain more experience.

#3: Wasteful Social Media Activities

Social media activities – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – unless carried out as a part of your overall blogging strategy, can be extremely time-wasting.

But if you are active on these platforms merely as a habit without any clear-cut strategy, that needs to be stopped.

It is believed that an average person spends nearly 2 hours daily on the social media.

Are you one of those compulsive Facebook users who constantly keeps on checking status updates and live feeds every minute?

Do you aimlessly scroll down your Facebook and Twitter timelines many times?

If you look carefully, you will realise that you waste many precious minutes on these social media platforms instead of doing something productive on your blog.

They become a major source of distraction from your blogging activities if you do not manage your time properly.

Resist the temptation to check your social media channels every now and then.

Rein in your inclination to comment on every post or tweet.

Make a conscious effort to distance yourself from your social media activities until you learn how to use them as part of your marketing strategy.

#4: Running After Shiny Objects

When you’re in the Internet business world, there’ll be many times when you will be tempted to go after schemes that promise you quick bucks.

The shiny object syndrome hits many people.

Day in day out, you are bombarded with ads and emails to entice you to sign up for an easy or quick way to achieve success.

It’ll be very difficult not get attracted to these get-rich-quick schemes.

You need to understand that there’s no substitute for hard work.

There’re no get-rich-overnight schemes that actually work.

Do not ever get distracted from your blogging work at hand.

They can leave you all bruised and seriously disillusioned.

#5: Changing WordPress Themes Frequently

If you’re using a free WordPress theme for your blog, you will surely be tempted to change it in between.

As a beginner, it is advisable to learn the finer aspects of website building on a free theme. However, some free themes might not have all the functionalities you desire and they mostly come with fewer customisation options.

Hence, during the early phase, people change themes frequently.

When you change your theme, things can get messy.

And if you’re a beginner, things can get a tad overwhelming.

It can take up a lot of time to bring your blog to the desired look and feel after the theme change.

This can become distracting to the point that you’re wasting too much time on researching for the “best free WordPress themes” for your blog.

Remember, WordPress themes come bundled with different functionalities under different categories.

The excitement of seeing your blog with different designs can override all other blogging activities.

But once you get the hang of it, it is always advisable to upgrade to a premium WordPress theme for your blog.

The advantage being, the premium themes tend to be better coded, light-weight and with better customisation options.

Also, once purchased, you will not be tempted to change it.

Choose your theme after a thorough research and something which fits over niche or business.

Resist the temptation to change your theme as a compulsion.

#6: Tinkering With Blog Designs

The visual elements in a website are important for halting visitors on your page.

If you’re one of those people who’s never satisfied with how your blog looks, you will be tempted to play around with its designs – menu placement, widgets, fonts, layout, typography, ads, banners, colour schemes, etc.

It’s actually exciting to try out all the features in your theme and it sure does take time to arrive at a look and feel that fits our business and personality. Blog, after all, is an extension of you.

It’s good to know how the different elements in our website functions and it’s a skill that comes with lots of trial and error.

While there’s no denying about the benefits of learning the various functionalities in your WordPress site, it can also be highly distracting.

It can become time-consuming and wasteful.

In the beginning, do not be too perturbed with the looks of your website. I’m not saying it’s not important but that should not be your priority, at least, in the initial stages of your website-building.

Try to have a basic design – a no-nonsense one without too many bells and whistles – with the most important elements.

When I say important elements, I mean to say the branding elements like logo, header image, favicon, theme colour, etc. as well as a few key menu items.

Remember, whatever strategies you’re going to employ, they can only work when you have a good body of work on your blog. In other words, you need to publish frequent posts to test the waters for the workability of a strategy. Get the point?

Do not let yourself get distracted by the designing hassles. It can be done later or in bits as you go along.

Don’t get drowned in a sea of information about the functionalities of different widgets and plugins.

Just keep on blogging, and if you must, try to work out the designing elements in between your posts.

Ask a friend or family member for an honest input about your blog design.

Take the help of a designer friend if you are lucky to have one.

#7: Going After Too Many Courses

There are hundreds of Internet Marketing or Affiliate Marketing courses available online.

Many of them are good.

Many of them are bad too, promising you on a get-rich-quick dream.

But the so-called good ones teach you the same stuff, the course content is the same, the strategies are all similar.

And each one claims to be the best one out there for a successful online business.

Not only do many affiliate links on your pages look spammy, they also consume much of your time to get through the whole process of signing up, waiting for approval and creating those banners and affiliate links.

#11: Comparison

Whether you’re a beginner or someone who’s relatively experienced, it’s easy to get sucked into that nasty habit of constantly comparing yourself with other fellow bloggers.

It’s good to be following the footsteps of highly successful bloggers but this should not encourage you to start chasing their strategies blindly without any definite plan of your own.

The success stories of many bloggers can inspire you towards your own success but if it happens the other way round where instead of getting motivated, you are left seriously disillusioned, that’s a major distraction which should be avoided.

We are all different and so are our life situations. It’s meaningless to compare yourself to other fellow bloggers even if they are in a similar level of blogging experience as you.

It is fine to replicate the strategies of successful bloggers but that should be under your own definite plan of action. That should be contained within your own strategy.

Do not let yourself to be led blindly to follow everything that the experts do. Your circumstances are not the same as theirs. You want to establish your own unique identity and brand, don’t you?

Be organised and focused.

#12: Facebook Strategies

Apart from ads, there are many Facebook strategies for lead generation.

For instance, the “tribe builder” and other Facebook closed groups of Internet marketers.

But I have seen that rather than helping you secure business leads or make sales, they cause more distraction to the user.

This is because the strategy requires you to open your Facebook account to log in to these groups that teach almost the same technique.

It requires you to stay online and be active on Facebook.

I, for one, believe that Facebook is a major cause of distraction for most people and this social media channel is one that should be kept in check if you do not want to waste your precious time.

Agreed that one should leverage Facebook for a more complete marketing strategy but it is also generally accepted that it is the wasteful one too.

We cannot ignore Facebook, but personally, I feel that a beginner can defer their Facebook strategy before they are able to drive good traffic to their blog.

Are You Aware of Your Blogging Distractions?

We are all unique and so it’s not necessary that we all have the same kind of distractions.

Some people have a tendency to check their mail every now and then almost as a compulsion.

Some cannot do away with their social obligations and so they do not avoid the weekend parties or other active socialisation ways.

There are also people who are addicted to TV.

These are all major distractions and if you do not have a robust strategy in place, they have the potential to render your blogging journey into a wasteful activity.

Let us all be aware of these distractions so that we remain focused and become even more resolute about our endeavour.

Do the distractions mentioned above affect you too?

Can you relate to them?

I’m sure you would have devised a few practical ways of overcoming them.

We are committed to achieving success.

The bright side of having distractions is that they teach us about the commitments we made.

2 comments
On Common Blogging Distractions and How to Avoid Them

There are tons of ways to get distracted and force you to not be productive, and these are all great examples of that. I have to constantly remind myself to not waste time scrolling through social media, and instead, improve my own social media. It’s very easy to get off track, but that’s what it means to be human. I was tempted to change my theme a month ago after a month of my site being live, but I decided I liked what I did.

Indeed, we are distracted because we are humans. In fact, we should allow us to get distracted at times even. You know, just to break the monotony and to avoid having early burnouts. However, as bloggers, since time is at a premium, we cannot afford to get distracted for long. We need to be conscious to our own behaviour that takes us away from the immediate tasks at hand. Thanks for dropping by.

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About Me

Hey, I’m Sukumar Thingom. For years, I struggled as a blogger and made many mistakes. The purpose of my blog is to help newbie bloggers manoeuvre their way through the extremely confusing world of internet marketing without having to waste much precious time.